Sunday, 7 August 2016

Edward Snowden's "dead man's switch"

Many
feared that the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden was dead after two
cryptic 64-character codes were tweeted to his public Twitter profile
and quickly deleted. The cryptic code tweets led many to believe that
Snowden may have been captured or killed and the codes were the
result of a “dead man’s switch” designed to release if he did
not check in to the computer at a certain time. However, a journalist
with The
Intercept that
has worked with the whistleblower in the past says that Snowden is
“fine,” but would not elaborate further.

A
Russian news site, Sputnik
News,
reported that the strange
64-character codes could
have been part of a “dead man’s switch” which would indicate
that Snowden had been captured or killed. The dead man’s switch is
“a message set up to be automatically sent if the holder of an
account does not perform a regular check-in. The whistleblower has
acknowledged that he has distributed encrypted files to journalists
and associates that have not yet been released, so in Snowden’s
case, the dead man’s switch could be an encryption key for those
files.” Therefore, when the code was released for a brief moment on
Snowden’s Twitter account, his followers quickly went into internet
sleuth mode and attempted to decipher the meaning of the message.

One
of Edward Snowden’s mysterious tweets that many feared was a dead
man’s switch. (Image via Twitter)

The
codes follow another cryptic code posted by Snowden in which he
revealed to his former colleagues “It’s time.” In the tweet,
which has since been deleted, Snowden asked people that worked with
him to recontact him securely, or to talk directly to Barton Gellman,
a reporter currently working on a book about Snowden.

The
request for contact was deemed symbolic of some future release of
information that Snowden may have been holding on to since his
initial bombshell surveillance report. Snowden revealed early on that
he had more information that he would release when the “time was
right.” Therefore, the use of the words “it’s time” may be
indicating that the next major leak will be released shortly.
Therefore, many believe that the cryptic code could be the encryption
code for the file.

To
further conspiracy theories that Snowden had been killed or captured
before he could release the next big NSA leak, it was noted that
shortly after the release of the mysterious codes, numerous major
torrent websites went down without warning. This led to speculation
that someone was trying to take down all the methods that Snowden may
use to release the encrypted data to the public and to prevent the
spread of the data.

Though
many feared the code release meant Snowden’s demise, a journalist
for The
Intercept Glenn
Greenwald says Snowden is “fine.”

However,
when pressed further about what the cryptic code could have
represented, Greenwald did not respond. Meanwhile, Edward Snowden’s
twitter account has remained silent for 24 hours with many hotly
anticipating his next move.

After posting a 64 character hex code that is believed to be an encryption key, the internet worries that the famed whistleblower may have been killed or captured resulting in the triggering of a dead man’s switch and potentially the release of many more US national secrets.

On
Friday night, famed NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden tweeted out a
64 character code before quickly deleting the message along with
a mysterious warning earlier this week that “It’s Time” which
had called on colleagues of the former contractor
to contact him leaving the internet to speculate that the
characters could be an encryption key for a major document leak,
it may be a “dead man’s switch” set to go in effect
if the whistleblower were killed or captured, or potentially both.

A
dead man’s switch is a message set up to be automatically sent
if the holder of an account does not perform a regular check-in.
The whistleblower has acknowledged that he has distributed encrypted
files to journalists and associates that have not yet been
released so in Snowden’s case, the dead man’s switch could
be an encryption key for those files.

As
of this time, Edward Snowden’s Twitter account has gone silent
for over 24 hours which is far from unprecedented for the
whistleblower but is curious at a time when public concern
has been raised over his well-being. The 64 hex characters
in the code do appear to rule out the initial theory
that Edward Snowden, like so many of us, simply butt dialed
his phone, but instead is a clearly a secure hash algorithm that
can serve as a signature for a data file or as a
password.

The
timing shortly after the "It’s Time" tweet also have
caused concern for some Reddit
theorists such
as a user named stordoff who believes that the nascent Twitter
post "was intended to set something in motion."
The user postulates that it is an encrypted message, a signal, or a
password.